• Marketing Pilgrim , Thursday, January 17, 2008 2 PM

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is a project aimed at getting college students to understand and be interested in search marketing through experimentation with AdWords. With $200 and three weeks, the students will manage a client's AdWords account--from keyword research, to crafting copy and performance tracking--and Google will judge them based on various criteria like CTRs. There will be global and regional winners--with the grand prize being a week-long trip to the Googleplex.

Janet Driscoll Miller notes that in addition to grooming college students for future jobs at the 'Plex, the search giant is also helping to further the evolution of search marketing as an industry. These soon-to-be entrants into the online marketing work force will have a better grasp of how search impacts advertising and marketing strategies as a whole--and will likely aid in changing overall attitudes toward search at whichever agency, consultancy or brand marketer they end up working for.

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